Mark a Win

The last two years have been all about becoming more healthy. I started with properly treating my depression and anxiety (check!), moved on to addressing my eating disorder and obesity (check and ongoing check!) and lately it has been all about dealing with chronic pain.

Yes, I have chronic pain. I consistantly averaged a 6-7 on the pain scale daily. (Anything over a 4 on the pain scale will trigger most doctors to hand you prescription strength pain killers.) This started when I got a pretty severe repetitive stress injury in my back and right arm at 25 years old. It took six months to go back to regular full time work and a year to get to a stable point. Even then I was marked off as having permanently lost 8% of my physical ability forever. I was told that I would have flare ups of back pain for the rest of my life and a higher chance of tendon issues and arthritis. I assumed this meant I should just push through the pain because it would never really go away. I came from a family of addicts (various) so I wasn't about to pop narcotics on a regular basis and risk addiction. So I ignored it...for the last 11 years. And, surprise, the pain got worse. I injured myself repeatedly and had horrible flare ups that left me crying on the couch unable to move my arms. It made my depression and anxiety worse. It make me binge more for comfort. It made exercise 10x harder and so I continued to gain weight....which made my pain worse. You see how this feedback loop goes?

Well, silly me, I didn't realize the damage I was continually doing. Not just to my body but to my brain! I knew about neural pathways and how they become more likely to follow well used connections, like a rut in the road, but I never made the connection to pain messages. I have spent the last 11 years making deep ruts in my pain pathways. Now some of my pain has nothing to do with actual physical injury! The damn buggers are just zapping my brain with pain messages any old time they feel like it! (Side note: It is a theory that this is a possible cause of fibromyalgia. My primary NP suspects I would meet the diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia but I don't think I'll bother with that.)

Two years ago this would have seemed like a situation impossible to change. I would feel helpless and hopeless. Thankfully, I'm new-found stability gave me the platform to address this. About 6 months into this new pain improvement project and I feel fantastic! I've tracked my pain, discovered what helps and what hurts. I've re-organized my chores, my kitchen set up and learned to ask for help from Monkey and Author when I have flare ups. As a result, I'm spending most of my time at a 1-2 on the pain scale and managing to get more done that I did before! I have accepted that careful use of some mild narcotic pain meds are a good thing and that, if I don't ignore my pain, I'm less likely to need them. I've added a regular, non-narcotic med that is managing my nerve-related pain amazingly.

So I'm marking another win in the "Bear 2.0" project!